The Trump administration is sending pregnant unaccompanied minors to a South Texas shelter (above) flagged as medically insufficient by officers from the Workplace of Refugee Resettlement. The ability is run by a for-profit contractor referred to as City Methods.
Patricia Lim/KUT Information
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Patricia Lim/KUT Information
The Trump administration is sending all pregnant unaccompanied minors apprehended by immigration enforcement to a single group shelter in South Texas. The choice was remodeled pressing objections from a number of the administration’s personal well being and little one welfare officers, who say each the ability and the area lack the specialised care the ladies want.
That is in accordance with seven officers who work on the Workplace of Refugee Resettlement inside the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers, which takes custody of kids who cross the border and not using a dad or mum or authorized guardian, or are separated from household by immigration authorities. The kids stay in ORR’s care till they are often launched to an grownup or deported, or flip 18.
All the officers requested to not be named for concern of retaliation.
Since late July, greater than a dozen pregnant minors have been positioned on the Texas facility, which is within the small border metropolis of San Benito. Some had been as younger as 13, and a minimum of half of these taken in thus far grew to become pregnant because of rape, the officers mentioned. Their pregnancies are thought of excessive danger by definition, significantly for the youngest women.
“This group of children is clearly acknowledged as our most susceptible,” one of many officers mentioned. Rank-and-file employees, the official mentioned, are “dropping sleep over it, questioning if children are going to be positioned in packages the place they don’t seem to be going to have entry to the care they want.”
The transfer marks a pointy departure from longstanding federal observe, which positioned pregnant, unaccompanied migrant youngsters in ORR shelters or foster properties across the nation which can be outfitted to deal with high-risk pregnancies.
The ORR officers mentioned they had been by no means informed why the ladies are being concentrated in a single location, not to mention on this specific shelter in Texas. However they — together with greater than a dozen former authorities officers, well being care professionals, migrant advocates and civil rights attorneys — fear the Trump administration is knowingly placing the youngsters in danger to advance an ideological purpose: denying them entry to abortion by putting them in a state the place it is nearly banned.
“That is 100% and solely about abortion,” mentioned Jonathan White, a longtime federal well being official who ran ORR’s unaccompanied youngsters program for a part of President Trump’s first time period. White, who just lately retired from the federal government, mentioned the administration tried and failed to limit abortion entry for unaccompanied minors in 2017. “Now they casually roll out what they brutally fought to perform final time and did not.”
Requested if the administration is sending pregnant youngsters to San Benito to limit their entry to abortion, HHS mentioned in a press release that the allegation was “fully inaccurate.”
In an earlier assertion, the division mentioned that “ORR’s placement selections are guided by little one welfare greatest practices and are designed to make sure every little one is housed within the most secure, most developmentally acceptable setting, together with for kids who’re pregnant or parenting.”
However a number of of the ORR officers took subject with the division’s assertion. “ORR is meant to be a baby welfare group,” one in every of them mentioned. “Placing pregnant children in San Benito is just not a choice you make whenever you care about youngsters’s security.”
ORR’s appearing director, Angie Salazar, instructed company employees to ship “any pregnant youngsters” to San Benito starting July 22, 2025, in accordance with an inside e mail obtained as a part of a six-month investigation by The California Newsroom and The Texas Newsroom, public media collaboratives that labored collectively to provide this story.
A duplicate of the July 22, 2025, e mail notifying ORR supervisors of the directive to ship pregnant unaccompanied minors to a single shelter in San Benito, Texas. The transfer comes over objections from the federal government’s personal well being and little one welfare officers.
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A number of of the officers mentioned a handful of pregnant women have mistakenly been positioned in different shelters as a result of immigration authorities did not know they had been pregnant once they had been transferred to ORR custody.
Because the July order, not one of the pregnant women on the San Benito facility have skilled main medical issues, in accordance with the ORR officers and Aimee Korolev, deputy director of ProBAR, a corporation that gives authorized companies to youngsters there. They mentioned a number of of the ladies have given delivery and are detained with their infants.
However ORR officers interviewed for this story mentioned they fear the shelter is just one high-risk being pregnant away from disaster.
“I really feel like we’re simply ready for one thing horrible to occur,” one of many officers mentioned.
‘Blown away by the extent of danger’
There are dozens of ORR shelters or foster properties throughout the nation which can be designated to take care of pregnant unaccompanied youngsters, in accordance with a number of of the ORR officers, with 12 in Texas alone. None of them may recall a time when the entire pregnant minors within the company’s custody had been concentrated in a single shelter.
Detaining them in San Benito, Texas, medical doctors and public well being specialists mentioned, is a harmful gambit.
“It isn’t good to be a pregnant particular person in Texas, regardless of who you might be,” mentioned Annie Leone, a nurse midwife who just lately spent 5 years caring for pregnant and postpartum migrant girls and women at a big household shelter not removed from San Benito. “So, to place pregnant migrant children in Texas, after which in one of many worst well being care areas of Texas, is just not good in any respect.”
The specialised obstetric care that exists in Texas is usually accessible in its bigger cities, hours from San Benito. And a number of other components, together with the excessive variety of uninsured sufferers, have eroded the provision of well being care throughout the state.
Moreover, Texas’ near-ban on abortion has been particularly devastating to obstetric care. The legislation permits an exception in circumstances the place the pregnant particular person’s life is in peril or one in every of her bodily capabilities is in danger, however medical doctors have been confused as to what meaning.
Many medical doctors have left to observe elsewhere, and people who’ve stayed are sometimes scared to carry out procedures they fear may include felony prices. Whereas Texas handed a legislation clarifying the exceptions final yr, specialists have mentioned it might not be sufficient to assuage medical doctors’ fears.
A number of maternal well being specialists listed the potential risks for the ladies on the San Benito shelter: If one in every of them develops an ectopic being pregnant (the place the fertilized egg implants outdoors the uterus), if she miscarries or if her water breaks too early and she or he will get an an infection, the emergency care she wants might be delayed or denied by medical doctors cautious of the abortion ban.
Getting the care that’s accessible may take too lengthy to save lots of her life or the infant’s, they added.
Adolescents are additionally extra seemingly to provide delivery early, which could be life-threatening for each mom and child. The youngest face problems throughout labor and supply as a result of their pelvises aren’t totally developed, mentioned Dr. Anne-Marie Amies Oelschlager, an obstetrician in Washington state who makes a speciality of adolescent being pregnant.
“These are younger adolescents who’re nonetheless going by way of puberty,” she mentioned. “Their our bodies are nonetheless altering.”
Pregnant women who just lately endured the usually harrowing journey to the U.S. face much more danger, obstetrics specialists mentioned. Consultants who work with migrant youngsters say many are raped alongside the way in which and contract sexually transmitted infections that may be harmful throughout being pregnant. Add to that little to no entry to prenatal care or correct nourishment, after which the trauma of being detained.
“You could not arrange a worse state of affairs,” mentioned Dr. Blair Cushing, who runs a girls’s well being clinic in McAllen, about 45 minutes from San Benito. “I am type of blown away by the extent of danger that they are concentrating on this facility.”
A historical past of issues
The San Benito shelter is owned and operated by City Methods, a for-profit firm that has contracted with the federal authorities to take care of unaccompanied youngsters for greater than a decade, in accordance with USAspending.gov.
Meliza Fonseca lives throughout the road from the San Benito shelter. She mentioned she often sees children within the yard on weekends, “however for probably the most half, you do not see them.”
Patricia Lim/KUT
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Patricia Lim/KUT
The primary constructing, an outdated tan brick Baptist Church, occupies a metropolis block in downtown San Benito, a quiet city of about 25,000. The church was transformed to a migrant shelter in 2015 and was managed by two different contractors earlier than City Methods took it over in 2021.
On a fall day final yr, there have been no indicators of exercise on the facility, although youngsters’s garden toys and playground tools had been seen behind a picket fence. A guard was stationed at one of many entrances.
“It is fairly quiet, similar to it’s right this moment,” mentioned Meliza Fonseca, who lives close by. “That is the way in which it’s day-after-day.”
She mentioned she often sees children taking part in within the yard on weekends, “however for probably the most half, you do not see them.”
Reached by e mail, the founder and president of City Methods, Lisa Cummins, wrote that the corporate is “deeply dedicated to the care and well-being of the youngsters we serve,” and directed any questions on ORR-contracted shelters to the federal authorities.
When requested concerning the San Benito facility, HHS wrote that “City Methods has a long-standing file of delivering high-quality care to pregnant unaccompanied minors, with a constantly low employees turnover.”
However the ORR officers who spoke with the newsrooms mentioned that as just lately as 2024, employees members on the shelter failed to rearrange well timed medical appointments for pregnant women or instantly share vital well being info with the federal company and discharged a few of them with out preparations to proceed their medical care.
ORR barred the shelter from receiving pregnant women from September to December of 2024 whereas City Methods applied a remediation plan, however the plan didn’t add employees or improve their {qualifications}, the officers mentioned.
A number of the officers mentioned ORR’s management was supplied with a listing of shelters which can be higher ready to deal with youngsters with high-risk pregnancies. All of these shelters are outdoors Texas, in areas the place the total vary of mandatory medical care is on the market. But the directive to put them at San Benito stays in place.
“It is merciless, it is simply merciless,” one of many officers mentioned. “They do not care about any of those children. They’re taking part in politics with youngsters’s well being.”
‘A costume rehearsal’
Jonathan White, who ran ORR’s unaccompanied youngsters program from January of 2017 to March of 2018, mentioned he wasn’t shocked to study that the brand new administration is transferring pregnant unaccompanied youngsters to Texas.
“I have been anticipating this since Trump returned to workplace,” White mentioned in an interview.
He mentioned he views the San Benito order as a continuation of an anti-abortion coverage shift that started in 2017, which “in the end proved to be a costume rehearsal for the present administration.”
Scott Lloyd, the company’s director on the time, denied women in ORR custody permission to finish their pregnancies, courtroom data present. Lloyd additionally required the ladies to get counseling about the advantages of motherhood and the harms of abortion and personally pleaded with a few of them to rethink.
“I labored to deal with the entire youngsters in ORR care with dignity, together with the unborn youngsters,” Lloyd informed the newsrooms in an e mail.
Within the fall of 2017, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a class motion lawsuit towards Lloyd and the Trump administration on behalf of pregnant women in ORR custody. The ACLU argued that denying the ladies abortions violated their constitutional rights, established by the Supreme Court docket in its 1973 Roe v. Wade determination.
Not lengthy after the lawsuit was filed, White mentioned, he obtained a late-night telephone name from Lloyd, who had a request. He needed White to switch an unaccompanied pregnant woman who was looking for an abortion to a migrant shelter in Texas, the place, below state legislation, it might have been too late for her to terminate her being pregnant. White mentioned that he believed following the order would have been illegal as a result of it may need denied the woman entry to authorized reduction below the lawsuit, so he refused. The woman was not transferred.
Lloyd, who has since left the federal government, acknowledged making the request however mentioned he did not suppose it was unlawful.
The lawsuit was settled in 2020; the primary Trump administration agreed to not impede abortion entry for migrant youth in federal custody going ahead. 4 years later, the Biden administration cemented the deal in official rules: If a baby who needed to terminate her being pregnant was detained in a state the place it was not authorized, ORR needed to transfer them to a state the place it was.
That rule stays in place, and the company seems to be following it: ORR has transferred two pregnant women out of Texas since July, although the company officers mentioned one of many women selected to not terminate her being pregnant.
However now that Trump is again in workplace, his administration is working to finish the coverage.
‘Elegant and easy’
Even earlier than Trump received reelection, policymakers in his circle had been planning a renewed try to limit abortion rights for unaccompanied minors.
Mission 2025, the Heritage Basis’s blueprint for a politically conservative overhaul of the federal authorities, referred to as for ORR to cease facilitating abortions for kids in its care. The plan suggested the federal government to not detain unaccompanied youngsters in states the place abortion is on the market.
Such a change is now doable, Mission 2025 argued, as a result of Roe v. Wade is not an impediment. Because the Supreme Court docket overturned the landmark determination in 2022, there isn’t any longer a federal proper to abortion.
Upon returning to workplace, Trump signed an government order “to finish the pressured use of Federal taxpayer {dollars} to fund or promote elective abortion.”
Then, in early July, the Division of Justice reconsidered a longstanding federal legislation, often called the Hyde Modification, that governs the usage of taxpayer cash for abortion. The DOJ concluded that the federal government can’t pay to move detainees from one state to a different to facilitate abortion entry, besides in circumstances of rape or incest or to save lots of the lifetime of the mom.
And now, ORR is working to rescind the Biden-era requirement that pregnant women requesting an abortion be moved to states the place it is accessible. On Jan. 23, the company submitted the proposed change for presidency approval, although it has not but revealed the small print.
A number of of the ORR officers who spoke with the newsrooms mentioned it is unclear whether or not youngsters within the company’s custody who’ve been raped or want emergency medical care will nonetheless be allowed to get abortions.
“HHS doesn’t touch upon pending or pre-decisional rulemaking,” the division wrote when requested for particulars of the regulatory change. “ORR will proceed to adjust to all relevant federal legal guidelines, together with necessities for offering mandatory medical care to youngsters in ORR custody.”
The day the change was submitted, an unnamed Well being and Human Providers spokesperson informed The Day by day Sign, a conservative information web site, “Our purpose is to save lots of lives each for these younger youngsters which can be coming throughout the border, which can be pregnant, and to save lots of the lives of their unborn infants.”
Consultants who spoke with the newsrooms mentioned it is unclear why the federal government would focus pregnant youngsters in a single Texas shelter, relatively than disperse them at shelters all through the state. However they mentioned they’re satisfied that the San Benito directive and the anti-abortion rule change are supposed to work hand in hand: As soon as pregnant youngsters are positioned on the San Benito shelter, the brand new rules may imply they can’t be moved out of Texas to get abortions — even when conserving them there places them in danger.
“It is so elegant and easy,” mentioned White, the previous head of the unaccompanied youngsters program. “All they should do is ship them to Texas.”
Mose Buchele with The Texas Newsroom contributed reporting.
This story was produced by The California Newsroom and The Texas Newsroom. The California Newsroom is a collaboration of public media retailers that features NPR, CalMatters, KQED (San Francisco), LAist and KCRW (Los Angeles), KPBS (San Diego) and different stations throughout the state. The Texas Newsroom is a public radio journalism collaboration that features NPR, KERA (North Texas), Houston Public Media, KUT (Austin), Texas Public Radio (San Antonio) and different stations throughout the state.
